Clay of Many Colors

There’s a story, you may have heard it, about a fruit that if someone ate it would grant the knowledge of good or evil. The divine planted the fruit bearing tree in the garden and told us not to eat it. Here’s another one, there’s a box (or a jar) that contains all the ills of the world, plus hope. The gods who gave it to the woman they created to open it told her not to open it. The jar was a punishment for the theft of fire, which kept humanity alive.

It’s human nature to bite the fruit and open the box (or jar). We let evil into the world. We set fires that keep us warm or burn the forests. We cling to hope too. Strive for better. Slide in the mud. Try again. It’s that mixture of mud and hope that has been much in mind following the election to US president of someone who played on so many of society's fears. This man didn’t invent the fruit. He didn’t make the jar. They’ve always been part of the fabric of our world.

This collection examines some of the roots of these fears through a mix of stories from various religious traditions and tales of people simply moving through their days. All of them looking for hope at the bottom of the jar. The sweet taste of the knowledge of good along with the bitter evil.

The third collection of speculative fiction stories from JayHenge Publishing, gathered and edited by Jessica Augustsson.

Within, you will find tales of courage and bravery, heroic journeys and audacious adventures, in the space where the known and unknown meet.

Come along on our travels through space, time, or even the most mundane circumstances, as they change what life is like, from space colonization and rocket ships to whirling sand and magical shoes that whisk us away to intrepid horizons.

Lit Gloss: A Rose by Any Other Name

The Bard of Avon. England's National Poet. William Shakespeare. He occupies a very central position in English Literature. Well, he has a canon, and students are forced to read him. Ben Jonson referred to Shakespeare as, "Soul of the age, the applause, delight, the wonder of our stage."

Every production of a Shakespeare play is a variation on which aspects of the story that the director and the various artists involved want to accentuate. Hopefully, people watching the plays have a similar level of engagement and walk away thinking about what those variations meant.

They might wonder just why was Beatrice so opposed to marriage. One bad love affair seems like not enough reason. They might image that Shylock leaves Venice after the end of Merchant of Venice. They could try to decide if faking Juliet’s death was really the best plan? Actually, strike that one. It clearly was a bad plan. While not at Hamlet or Macbeth levels, things could have gone better. Instead they might like to think that Marguerite of Anjou and Joan of Arc hung out off stage in Henry VI Part I.

It's fun to imagine what all the characters were doing off stage. Even the villains have reasons for being the way they are. They are, after all, the heroes of their own stories.

This collection of short stories explores exactly those sorts of ideas (pursued by bears) in the margins of the plays. When Shakespeare started writing (sorry Baconites), he was called an "upstart crow" by Robert Greene, because he wasn't a university educated playwright. While Shakespeare himself asked, "What's in a name?" and wrote plays based on existing stories. That's means examining Shakespeare shouldn't be a rarefied act of Bardolatry, but something joyous. It's what the Bard of Avon would want.

Blood Maiden

In the City, gods from all mythologies mashup with the every day. Monster infested fog sometimes sweeps through the lunch hour. Occasionally traffic backs up because the Blood river overflows. Bicyclists can shortcut through the Sumerian underworld to City park as long as they don’t mind a few Sumerian zombies. That’s life in the City.

Blood Maiden, a Mayan death goddess, is starting her senior year at Himinbjorg High, where her skin, hair, even the shape of her nose mark her as an outsider among the teenage Norse gods. While at home in the Mayan Underworld, anyone who is invited as a guest must face a series of trials. The winners will gain a boon from the Death Lords, but since the heroes never listen to Blood Maiden’s advice, they end up trapped in the underworld. Meanwhile, Blood
Maiden's parents think that she'd be a great death goddess if she just had a little more self confidence.

Her friends have their own problems. Blood Maiden's friend, P.D., swallows a pine needle and gives birth to Raven, who keeps trying to steal the sun, moon, and stars stored in the hope chest in the living room. The twins, Isis and Nepthys, can't stop arguing. Coatlique thinks they should form an intramural Pitz Meso-American soccer) team. While the new girl,
Princess Danae or Danny, has been lojacked by her father because of the "curse" that she's under.
If Blood Maiden can just figure out how to deal with Zeus perving on Danny, how to ask Danny to the prom, all the tangled prophesies everyone is under, and her parent's expectations, just maybe she'll figure out what she's supposed to do with her life without killing anyone.

The Fifth Sun

In an alternative European renaissance, where princes keep vampires as
servants, the British Isle has been split into two kingdoms. In the
South, Queen Mary rules an England in turmoil. Fearful for her unborn
child, she increasingly obeys the whispers of the stone mirror on her
wall. While in the North, Queen Elizabeth juggles suitors, the undead
and preventing the apocalypse.

Each night, Elizabeth dreams
of the end of the world. Dreams she shares with four people scattered
across Europe: a psychic lost in the present, an undead Crusader, an
Aztec priestess and a teenage vampire. Elizabeth struggles to understand
how she can save a world that's shaking itself apart.

The City is a place where all mythologies and folklore mingle and mix. It is the mother of Cities. The rainbow serpent bridge may turn into a serpent again during rush hour commute (and isn't *that* annoying). While the red brick road spirals out through parts of itself that the City has discarded. The City sprawls across space. It condenses on an island. The living dead roam the mall, which makes it difficult to run a shop. A goddess of nature wanders traffic searching for her missing daughter. Snow White runs a mining company, while the Lamia runs a resort. Inanna wants to know who will pay for what's been done. Take a walk on the mythological side of the street with fourteen stories that bend myths and jay walk from time to time. Just be careful not to look Medusa in the eyes.
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